Above left to right: Elliot Boots, Adam Drake,
David Ronnefalk, Mark Pavidis, Cody King and
Marty Korn. Left: ;e number stickers on his
car weren’t lying – with a convincing
victory at the Warm-Up and a
brilliant drive to take the title,

Robert Batlle was truly the #1
driver on the planet in 2012.

A SYSTEM OF BROKEN HEAR TSFor IFMAR’s nitro o;-road competition, six rounds ofqualifying (rain cancelled the sixth round this year)using a points-style system to reward round-to-roundconsistency seeds dual main event ladders with no onetransferring directly to the 60-minute final – meaningthat all 12 of the cars that lined up on the grid had torace their way into the show. ;ough touted by nitroo;-road racers as the fairest way to remove trackconditions from the equation and put all racers on aneven playing field, the dual ladder system has a knackfor creating unbelievable heartbreak – like 2004, forinstance, when Yannick Aigoin outclassed the fieldin qualifying but was DQ’d for an illegal fuel tankafter handily winning his semifinal; he had to sit andwatch the final (which was won by fellow FrenchmanGuillaume Vray).

To debut a new car at the World Championships is a big deal; XRAY brought a huge team to support
the launch of its prototype XB9. American driver Josh Wheeler was the comeback kid of the team,
coming from what seemed like out of nowhere to qualify for the Final.